College Counseling and Student Retention

One of the challenges facing college counselors and counseling centers is articulating and advocating for their role in the lives of students and in the campus community. Direct connections between counseling and retention are difficult to demonstrate empirically. Counselors must look to the indirect relationships between counseling and retention. There is a growing consensus that colleges are expected to go beyond academic factors to developing the whole individual. Counseling plays a vital role in this broader development. So, what is the role of the college counselor in retaining students? What should it be?